Melville Fuller

“ In other words, appellants should be charged with rental value from the date of the filing of the bills to the rendition of the decrees, with interest, and should be credited with taxes, etc., paid after the date of the filing of the bills, with interest, and also with the amounts paid the government for the different parcels, with interest from the dates of payment, as well as with the value of the improvements, in each instance at the time of the rendition of the decrees. ”

“ It may be that after the title was adjudged to be in the United States the tenants could not remove the buildings, but the commissioners found that the buildings belonged to them, and the decrees here gave the value of them to appellants. No appeal was prayed by appellees in this regard, and no question arises in respect of it. Inasmuch as the tenants set up claims to the lots in hostility to the leases, they cannot complain of decrees in their favor for the value ”

“ In seeking equity, appellees must do equity, and, as a result has been reached which gives the awards of the commission a direction contrary to that which appellees had accepted as substantially equitable, we think equity requires that they should not be treated as occupying the same position as if they had maintained with vigor and promptness the rights which they found on April 7, 1884, they could assert. ”